The Open Group Publishes New Standards for SOA and Cloud

SAN FRANCISCO, January 17, 2012 — The Open Group[1] today announced the availability of two new industry standards that enable businesses to effectively integrate fundamental elements of SOA and Cloud Computing into a solution or Enterprise Architecture. The new standards are: SOA Reference Architecture (SOA RA), a blueprint for creating and evaluating SOA Solutions; and the Service-Oriented Cloud Computing Infrastructure Framework (SOCCI), the first Cloud standard of The Open Group, which outlines the concepts and architectural building blocks necessary for infrastructures to support SOA and Cloud initiatives.

Additionally, The Open Group has released updates to The Open Group Service Integration Maturity Model (OSIMM), which has now been ratified as an ISO and IEC (ISO/IEC 166880) International Standard. OSIMM gives organizations a common model for developing a roadmap for achieving the right level of service adoption to meet business objectives.

"The Open Group SOA announcement today, including the SOA Reference Architecture and ISO approval of OSIMM, provides standards based interoperability for businesses that leverage their SOA solutions to the Cloud," said Angel Diaz, Vice President, Software Standards and Cloud, IBM. "IBM is committed to supporting these standards in our products and services as they evolve, and we look forward to working with other Open Group members to advance the SOA Reference Architecture and SOA Ontology to international standards."

“In today’s global competitive marketplace it is imperative that business and IT drivers are aligned,” said Chris Harding, Director for Interoperability, The Open Group. “Each of the three standards is vendor-neutral and helps an organization of any size to design and implement the proper SOA and Cloud solutions for its business objectives.”

The SOA Reference Architecture (SOA RA)

The Open Group SOA RA is an industry standard reference architecture for the development of SOA solutions. By utilizing the SOA RA Standard, enterprise architects now have a common language and approach for creating SOA solutions that meet different organizational needs and bridge the gap between business and IT. The architecture provides a vendor-neutral approach to SOA that allows users, vendors and customers across lines of business to reduce misunderstandings through shared terminology, thus eliminating extra efforts when mapping architectural concepts across vendors.

“The SOA RA provides a vendor neutral reference architecture for organizations. It enables organizations adopting or evolving SOAs to assess product solutions, define roadmaps, and solution and reference architectures, while, for standards bodies, it provides a common reference to work against and from,” said Nikhil Kumar, President, Applied Technology Solutions, Inc. (ApTSi). “One of its most compelling features is it’s designed to be both holistic and actionable - not only defining the capabilities, which are the key requirements of an SOA, but also the architectural building blocks and layers which help realize these capabilities. The SOA RA also provides a comprehensive mapping of the building blocks and layers to the capabilities. If you are an organization implementing an SOA, an integrator, product vendor or standards body this is where you should look to define your SOA.”

An Early Industry Cloud Computing Standard

SOCCI is the industry’s first Cloud Standard for enterprises that wish to provide infrastructure as a service in the Cloud and SOA. Developed by The Open Group SOA and Cloud Work Groups, SOCCI is the realization of an enabling framework of service-oriented components for infrastructure to be provided as a service in SOA solutions and the cloud. The standard details a set of common SOCCI elements and management building blocks for organizations to consider and identifies the synergies that can be realized through cohesive application of SOA and cloud-based principles. Using SOCCI, organizations can incorporate Cloud-based resources and services into their infrastructure for increased agility and scale, and lower maintenance costs.

"Service Oriented Cloud Computing Infrastructure (SOCCI) is a classic intersection of multiple paradigms in the industry – infrastructure virtualization, service-orientation and the cloud – an inevitable convergence," said Tom Hall, Global Product Marketing Manager, Cloud and SOA Applications, HP Enterprise Services. "HP welcomes the release of the industry's first cloud computing standard by The Open Group. This standard provides a strong foundation for HP and The Open Group to work together to evolve additional standards in the SOA and Cloud domains."

The Open Group Sets the Direction Internationally with OSIMM 2.0

OSIMM leverages proven best practices to allow consultants and IT practitioners to assess an organization’s readiness and maturity level for adopting services in SOA solutions. By aligning business goals and assessing associated SOA services IT practitioners can create a detailed roadmap for integrating services for SOA and Cloud Computing solutions into enterprises. With the recent ratification of OSIMM 2.0 by ISO and IEC, organizations worldwide have an extensible framework for understanding the value of implementing a service model, as well as a comprehensive guide for achieving their desired level of service maturity.

“The release of three new SOA standards from The Open Group again gives fuel to the mantra that re-use and best-practices are extremely important to help organizations leverage emerging business technologies to create efficient and effective IT organizations enabling them to save time, money and effort in their SOA and Cloud Computing journey,” said Mats Gejnevall, co-chair The Open Group SOA Work Group and Global Enterprise Architect, Capgemini.

Availability

The Open Group SOA RA technical standard, SOCCI framework, and OSIMM 2.0 International standard are available for download from The Open Group Bookstore[2]. These new standards can also be viewed online at:

About The Open Group

The Open Group is an international vendor- and technology-neutral consortium upon which organizations rely to lead the development of IT standards and certifications, and to provide them with access to key industry peers, suppliers and best practices. The Open Group provides guidance and an open environment in order to ensure interoperability and vendor neutrality. Further information on The Open Group can be found at www.opengroup.org[6].